


Sticks

by todisturbtheuniverse



Category: Strange Magic (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Golf, Christmas Fluff, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-24
Updated: 2015-12-24
Packaged: 2018-05-10 23:36:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,866
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5605210
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/todisturbtheuniverse/pseuds/todisturbtheuniverse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Marianne plays a round at Bog's golf course every Thursday. Christmas Eve and rain can't stop her. Strange Magic Secret Santa 2015: gift for vanguardshepard-commander (tumblr)/SooraLavellan (AO3).</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sticks

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mothmanaintshit](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mothmanaintshit/gifts).



It’s the first Thursday this year that Bog hasn’t seen Marianne, right at one o’clock, reporting for her weekly round.

Despite the miserable drizzle and chill breeze, he still thought she’d show. She’s turned up on days when it’s pouring rain, blinking the water from her lashes and shaking it from her short hair, her fingers cool and calloused when he passes over the pen to sign for the golf cart. Her sister chatters at her side, not stymied even by water pouring by the bucketful from the sky, her usual knee-length skirt traded out for warmer slacks. Marianne always wears slacks, even in the summer heat when the sweat’s already plastered her polo to her back by the fourth hole.

He checks the calendar. Her appearance is so regular that he’s stopped scheduling other groups for this tee time, even when she forgets to call it in. He’s not sure she’s ever forgotten, only that sometime in the last six months he’s already had her down for Thursday, one o’clock, every time she calls—but she didn’t call last night, now that he’s thinking about it.

He puts down his pen, runs a hand through his hair, glances out the window again, searching for some sign of her car out on the road. He knows exactly what color, make, model it is. ( _Pathetic_ , his brain supplies helpfully, but he waves this off impatiently.) There’s no sign of her, and it’s ten after one, and if he’d known she wasn’t coming, he wouldn’t have bothered opening at all today. No one else has booked a round.

He glances back to the calendar, and that’s when he realizes it’s not just a random Thursday in December, but a random Thursday in December that happens to be Christmas Eve. Marianne’s with her family, likely wearing an ugly Christmas sweater and smiling along to Dawn’s singing, and Bog is an idiot who can’t read a calendar, despite ten years of life revolving around rigorous scheduling.

Disgruntled, he stomps across the pro shop toward the glass door and its cheerful  _OPEN_ sign, letters decorated with little twists of vine and golden embellishes in the spirit of the holidays. His mother’s idea, and she’s not even _here_ , off to enjoy the sunshine in Hawaii with her friends for the week instead.

“You’ll be all right without me, won’t you, Bog?” she’d said, craning her neck to look up at him at the airport.

He’d been looking forward to the quiet, to having no knock on his door early Christmas morning, and now—inexplicably—loneliness wrenches his heart instead. He reaches for the sign, intending to turn it to _CLOSED_ and retreat to the bar, and his bookkeeping, when a flash of color catches his eye through the drizzle.

It’s her car, pulled into the parking lot while his brain was busy inundating him with self-pity. He can barely make her out, bending over her trunk to heave her golf bag out. She moves efficiently, standing it up and then sitting down on the trunk to change from her sneakers to her spikes. When she’s done, she crams her visor onto her head.

He scurries back to his post at the counter before she can turn and see him gaping through the door like a fish. It’s 1:15, and his chest fills with the same giddy nerves it does every Thursday, as though the last morose five minutes never happened.

Fickle organs, hearts.

She blows into the shop with her usual amount of noise: clanking clubs propped outside the door, an exasperated sigh as she shakes the water from her hair, combing her fingers through it. He would tell her that it’s a lost cause, but he suspects she takes some comfort from the routine, that it centers her—though there is no peppy sister trailing behind her today, going on about how Marianne is  _finally_ going to lose, she’s been practicing and she can _feel_ it.

“Hey, Bog,” she says, approaching the counter. Her eyes are bright like pennies in sunlight, but even on a day as gloomy as today, there’s a glow to them. “Sorry I’m late.”

Every week, he thinks he will have finally grown used to her, that his heart won’t stutter and his throat won’t stick this time, but in truth, he just gets better at hiding it. His palms still sweat, and he clears his throat before he says, “It’s no problem. No one else is booked today.”

He expected this to reassure her, but her lips twist in the wrong direction. She blows out an exasperated sigh. “And I’m not, either. I think I forgot to call in yesterday.” She drums her fingers on the counter, staring out into the drizzle, and then refocuses on his face, chin tipping up to meet his eyeline. “Sorry to keep you open just for me. On Christmas Eve, and everything.”

He shrugs. “You’re holding up no plans of mine.”

The irritation in her face softens. “Not doing anything for the holiday?”

He leans forward against the counter, putting himself closer to her height to spare her neck. “Not very festive. Mum and I usually still have a get-together, though—but she’s gone out of town, so it’s just me this year.”  

He realizes belatedly that this sounds _extra_ pathetic—not only does he not have plans for the holiday, but his plans are usually with his _mother_ , a thirty-year-old-man, why does he bother to open his mouth at all—but Marianne just chuckles, very quietly, and digs a few crumpled bills out of her pocket.

“That makes two of us. Dawn’s spending her first Christmas with Sunny’s family, and my dad got called out of town yesterday on last-minute business, so.” She smoothes the money out on the counter, her smile more a grimace. “Here I am.”

Relieved, he tips his head toward the window. “Not great weather for it.”

“It’s supposed to clear up in about an hour,” she says stoutly. “And, besides—if I miss one Thursday, I start missing them all, and then I get rusty, and Dawn beats me.” She shudders. “It’s awful.”

“Maybe you need a better challenge,” he suggests. His heart picks up again, watching the momentary surprise on her face at the dare in his voice. “I’ve seen the way you outdrive her. She’s not bad, but she’s not competition for the likes of you.”

“Really,” she says, leaning closer over the counter. “You know someone better?”

“Me.”

For a second, he thinks he’s overstepped a boundary—he can’t place the look on her face, the momentary stillness, the breath unmoving in her chest—but then she lets out a gusty laugh.

“Well, get your sticks then, Bog,” she taunts, pulling back from the counter. “I think I’m good enough to beat you.” She pushes the money toward him and reaches for a scorecard and pencil.

He pushes it back. “Forget it. Happy holidays.”

Her lip twitches. “I won’t go easy on you just because you’re being nice.”

Bog heaves his golf bag out from behind the counter, grabbing a key for one of the carts from the open drawer. “I’m counting on it, tough girl.”

She rolls her eyes, but he sees the corner of her wide grin as she turns away, stuffing the cash back in her pocket. The drizzle outside now looks much more appealing than drizzle has a right to. He follows her out into it.

* * *

Her first shot is perfect.

Despite the breeze, despite the drizzle, her driver hits the ball just right. The tee goes flying, end over end, and lands broken at the front of the teebox. Her spikes dig into the mushy grass, anchoring her at the end of her swing, and she can’t help the grin spreading over her face as she tracks the ball until it lands, right in the middle of the fairway, past the dogleg right. It’s always a risk, trying to cut this corner—there’s a bunker right there at the crook, and if you fall short, you end up getting a face full of sand digging yourself out—but this time, it’s paid off.

Bog grunts. “Not bad.”

Anyone else would get a few choice words for that; it’s more sporting to say “Nice shot,” and sound like you _mean_ it, her dad’s always said. You don’t goad the fellow you’re golfing with, even if they’re downright awful, and she’s not. It’s rude.

But she’s not a gentleman, and if Bog’s not, either, she’s happier for it. “If you can do better, be my guest,” she laughs, running her toe carefully over the ruffled grass her driver just missed. She can only imagine how muddy her shoes will be at the end of this.

His face sets itself in a deep, unsettling scowl as he passes her, but she sneaks a look sideways at him, anyway. Unsettling or not, there’s a reason she makes an appearance every Thursday—even this Thursday, without Dawn, on Christmas fucking Eve, in the cold and wet. She likes his unsettling scowl. Even better the brief smiles he sometimes turns her way. And if he’s volunteering to come out here and keep her company in this miserable weather, then maybe he feels the same way.

She hooks her fingers through the golf cart’s roof and watches as he squares up to the ball. For all that he’s still not standing straight, he’s a lot taller than her, and it’ll play to his advantage as long as he doesn’t have a terrible shot.

Predictably—he is _Scottish_ , after all, if she’s placing his accent right—his shot is like a thunderclap. His ball lands a good fifty yards ahead of hers and rolls to a nice spot not far from the green. She keeps her face straight and says nothing. He retrieves his unbroken tee, pockets it, and returns to the golf cart, his scowl a little less severe now. She slides into the passenger side, he takes off the brake, and they jolt forward. It’s a little comical, his long limbs folded up to fit in a standard golf cart. He doesn’t exactly look comfortable.

He parks on the path, parallel to her ball on the fairway. She takes her time selecting her club, darting a glance up now and then to recheck the lie and her distance to the pin. There’s no one behind them, after all, and she wants to draw this out. In case it never happens again.

“A pitching wedge?” he says, a little disbelief in his tone when she finally sets out for her ball. “It’s a hundred and fifty—”

“Relax,” she says, smiling over her shoulder. “I know what I’m doing.”

She does. There’s nothing more comforting or familiar to her than this, the moment of silence stretching out as she walks to her ball, the breeze in her hair, the rain soft on her face. It’s a weird kind of peace, for someone who never claims to be peaceful, but she loses her turmoil here, finds a center that’s usually lost.

She squares up, takes a practice swing, notes the give of the ground beneath her spikes, checks her route to the pin one last time, and then she swings.

She knows—she always knows, before she looks up, before it lands, if it’s a good shot, and this one is like the last, resonating up her arms with finality. The ball lands only ten feet from the pin and stops right there. She can two-putt that, easy.

She hears Bog chuckling behind her. “Impressive.”

She turns and gives a dramatic bow, complete with hand flourishes. He makes a sound in his throat like he’s strangling a heartier laugh. She walks back to the golf cart, grinning, and they drive forward to his ball.

Predictably, he lands not far from her—a little further from the pin—but has a near-perfect first putt to make up for it. They leave the first hole with the score tied. Marianne’s eased back into her seat in the golf cart, glad to have the opening shots out of the way, and sips her Gatorade reluctantly. The cold is less biting now that she’s moved around a bit, but the drizzle is as annoying as ever. She hopes it _does_ let up in an hour.

They spend the second hole mostly in silence, and end it till tied, despite Bog’s diversion to one of the sand traps. He gets hardly any of the wet crap on himself and gets out on the first shot.

“Nice out,” she says automatically, a note of appreciation in her voice. Hard enough when the sand is dry—worse when you can’t tell for sure how wet it is.

He grunts back. She’s decided he’s not good at taking compliments, which makes her want to keep spitting them out to unsettle him some more.

On the teebox of the third hole, he offers her a can after her shot. “Drink?” he says, shaking it enticingly. “It’s damn cold out here.”

She wouldn’t usually take it—anything that can affect her game, when she has a serious opponent, is a no-go—but as competitive as they’re being, this still doesn’t feel…serious. Something tight in her chest has already come unwound. Even if he pulled ahead, and even if she grumbled about it, she’d still be fighting a smile.

She takes the beer. Maybe intentionally, she lets their fingers touch as it changes hands. “Thanks,” she says, smiling up at him. He clears his throat, shrugs, and edges around her to take his shot from the teebox.

The silence breaks on the fourth hole. He ribs her about the massive divet she tears up from his fairway; she makes a point of walking twenty yards, picking up the torn-out sod, dropping it over the hole she made, and stomping on it. He starts laughing, not a withdrawn chuckle but a full-out crowing that has her laughing, too. The rain starts coming down harder, but they push on.

On the ninth hole, though, with Marianne one stroke in the lead, the rain has not let up. It’s been two hours, and they’re both having trouble finding the ball. “Want to call it after this hole?” she shouts from the rough, where she’s just uncovered her ball, half-buried in mud.

“With you one stroke up?” he calls back. “Convenient!”

“You’ve got a better shot than me!” she says, exasperated, and points out the ball sitting smack in the middle of the fairway, with a perfect approach to the green. “You can catch up!”

“I can’t even see the pin!” he replies, but she can hear the smile in his voice. “Fine—finish this hole, then hit the bar.”

“Amen,” she says fervently, and squares up to her shot.

It’s not good. The mud bogs her down. She lands still short of the green and curses under her breath, quietly enough that Bog can’t hear. Predictably, he lands nearly on top of the hole. No way is he missing that putt.

In the end, he catches up that point. They walk off the green dead even; she gives him a considering look, wondering how far she can push this.

“Rematch,” she offers. “Next week.”

For the first time all day, his grin seems deliberate.

“I hope you’ve got towels,” she adds. “I feel like I just pulled myself out of the lake on the fifth hole.”

“Plenty,” he says, gesturing to the cart. “Come on.”

* * *

Stupid, how much he likes her even when she’s muddy and wet and has a towel wrapped around her shoulders like a cape, nursing a hot cider with a liberal dosage of rum. The tip of her nose is bright red, her cheeks flushed with cold, but her eyes are wild and dark and happy, a thousand times more cheerful than when she walked into his pro shop.

He hopes that he did that.

When he sits down at the bar beside her with his own drink, she turns a wide, shy smile on him. “Thanks,” she says. “Rain or not, this was exactly what I needed.”

He clears his throat. “Anytime.”

He must not be looking at her closely enough, because he doesn’t see it when she moves, sudden and unpredictably, rising up from her bar stool to put a cold hand on his face and her warm mouth on his. She tastes, briefly, like spiced cider and cinnamon and rum, and then she’s just as quickly gone.

When he opens his eyes, her face is burning. “Um,” she says, like she’s not sure what just happened, either, but before she can say anything else, he decides that they’re better at _not_ talking and leans down to kiss her again instead. The damp fabric of her polo is cold under his hand, but her lips are warm and yielding.

By the time he pulls back, she’s got a death grip on his shoulder, her eyes soft and a little dazed, her mouth crooked in an easy smile. “Merry Christmas, Bog,” she says.

The merriest, he thinks, in a damn long time.


End file.
